[Numpy-discussion] Governance model request

[Travis Oliphant]

On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 3:02 AM, Fernando Perez <fperez.net at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I would like to pitch in here, I am sorry that I didn't have the time
> before...
>
> First, I want to disclose that recently Continuum made a research gift to
> the Jupyter project; we were just now writing up a blog post to acknowledge
> this, but in light of this discussion, I feel that I should say this up
> front so folks can gauge any potential bias accordingly.
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 22, 2015 at 3:44 AM, Travis Oliphant <travis at continuum.io>
> wrote:
>
>> I'm actually offended that so many at BIDS seem eager to crucify my
>> intentions when I've done nothing but give away my time, my energy, my
>> resources, and my sleep to NumPy for many, many years.    I guess if your
>> intent is to drive me away, then you are succeeding.
>
>
> Travis, first, I'd like to kindly ask you not to conflate BIDS, an
> institution where a large number of people work, with the personal opinions
> of some, who happen to work there but in this case are speaking only for
> themselves.  You say "so many at BIDS", but as far as I know, your
> disagreements are with Stefan and Nathaniel (Matthew doesn't work at
> BIDS).  You are painting with a very wide brush the work of many people,
> and in the process, unfairly impacting others who have nothing to do with
> this.
>

I accept that criticism and apologize for doing that.   My *human* side was
coming out, and I was not being fair.      In my head, though I was also
trying to illustrate how some seemed to be doing the same thing for
Continuum or other companies.   This did not come out very artfully in the
early morning hours.     I'm sorry.    BIDS is doing a lot for the
community --- the recent DS4DS workshop, for example, was a spectacularly
useful summit --- I hope that many different write-ups and reports of the
event make their way out into the world.

>
>
> 1. I hope the discussion can move past the suspicion and innuendo about
> Continuum and Travis.  I haven't always agreed with how Travis communicates
> some of his ideas, and I've said it to him in such instances (e.g. this
> weekend, as I myself was surprised at how his last round of comments had
> landed on the list a few days back).  But I also have worked closely with
> him for years because I know that he has proven, not in words, but in
> actions, that he has the best interests of our community at heart, and that
> he is willing to try and do everything in his power to help whenever he
> can.
>

I really hope it's just a perception problem (perhaps on my end).   There
are challenges with working in the commercial world (there are a lot of
things to do that have nothing to do with the technology creation) and
communicating on open-source mailing lists.    As many have noticed,
despite my intentions to contribute, I really can't do the same level of
contribution personally that I could when I was a student and a professor
and had more time.

However, I think that it is also under-appreciated (or mis-understood) how
much time I have spent with training and helping people who have
contributed instead.    It's important to me to build a company that can
sponsor people to work on open-source (in a community setting).    We are
still working on that, but it has been my intent.  So, far it's actually
easier to sponsor new projects than it is to sponsor people on old
projects.   I am quite sure that if Continuum had put 3 people full time on
NumPy in 2012, there would have been a lot of back-lash and
mis-understanding.   That's why we didn't do it.    The collateral effect
of that was the creation of other tools that could be somewhat competitive
with NumPy long term -- or not.

I'd like to learn how to work with the community in an optimal way so that
everyone benefits --- and progress happens.  That's also why we created
Numfocus --- though it is ironic that NumPy has been one of the last
projects to actually sign up and be a formally sponsored project.

2. Conflicts of interest are a fact of life, in fact, I would argue that
> every healthy and sufficiently interconnected community eventually *should*
> have conflicts of interest. They are a sign that there is activity across
> multiple centers of interest, and individuals with connections in multiple
> areas of the community.  And we *want* folks who are engaged enough
> precisely to have such interests!
>
> For conflict of interest management, we don't need to reinvent the wheel,
> this is actually something where our beloved institutions, blessed be their
> bureaucratic souls, have tons of training materials that happen to be not
> completely useless.  Most universities and the national labs have
> information on COIs that provides guidelines, and Numpy could include in
> its governance model more explicit language about COIs if desired.
>
> So, the issue is not to view COIs as something evil or undesirable, but
> rather as the very real consequence of operating in an interconnected set
> of institutions.  And once you take that stance, you deal with that
> rationally and realistically.
>
> For example, you accept that companies aren't the only ones with potential
> COIs: *all* entities have them. As Ryan May aptly pointed out, the notion
> that academic institutions are somehow immune to hidden agendas or other
> interests is naive at best... And I say that as someone who has happily
> stayed in academia, resisting multiple overtures from industry over the
> years, but not out of some quaint notion that academia is a pristine haven
> of principled purity. Quite the opposite: in building large and complex
> projects, I've seen painfully close how the university/government research
> world has its own flavor of the same power, financial and political
> ugliness that we attribute to the commercial side.
>

Thanks for re-emphasizing this.     I agree it's O.K. and even necessary to
talk about COIs.    If I have not been upfront about any possible COIs it's
not because of a desire to hide them --  I may not be aware of them myself
as I'm still focused on what technically can be better, and how to create a
company that can produce as much relevant open source software as possible.


I appreciate your helping us get to a better conversational ground.
Stefan's and Nathaniel's recent emails have done that as well.

Thank you,

-Travis
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